Artful Life By Cathy: Interview with Patricia Frischer, San Diego Commun...

Artful Life By Cathy: Interview with Patricia Frischer, San Diego Commun...: I met Patricia Frischer in 2001,   a few years after she moved to the San Diego area. My studio was on the COVA Studio Tour and as Patrici...

Augmented Reality

One of the four projects of the DNA of Creativity project (the Batt App) is going to have an augmented reality (AR) component. I had no idea what that meant this time last year, but bit by bit I am learning about this exciting new area of communication. I hope to give you a brief description of my discoveries and some links so you can see for yourself how exciting this technology really is that combines elements from the physical and the virtual world to create new experiences at home, in business, and by smart phone where ever you are connected to the internet.

Please note in my descriptions below, you must click on the links to really get an idea as no written explanation is adequate to describe these new technologies.  

I went to a presentation in May produced by Commnexus called Augmented Reality: Is It Real? hosted by the law firm Mintz Levin. The first presenter, Mike Gonzales, Creative Director and Brand Digital Manager of Wow Wee USA Inc is producing a line of AR toys under the brand AppGear which will sell for only $9.95. That is an incredible price when you realize that the child (or child at heart) will get a toy that acts as a marker to launch the technology similar to computer games purchases as dvds. The toys will be collectable and the AR component will lengthen the play time from the usual few hours to days and days of interaction.

This is the natural progression when the ipad, computer and smart phone become the playthings of our young people. The company started with a $100 robot which sold 6 million units and will probably come out with a $39.95 robot that will allow you to use your smart phone to see smoke trails when rockets are launched and do virtual repairs. But the first set of apps will include a small toy plane (Foam Fighters)  which attaches to your device and makes that device into a control panel for flying through the digital landscape. It has gaming capacity for multiple players and other games in this line can make your tabletop into a game board. Mike has produced toys in the Far East, but lives and has his head office in Carlsbad.

That brings me to our star local company Qualcomm which is no longer making actual phones but streaming ahead with software. Jay Wright, Senior Director, Business Development, Qualcomm is so confident of the augmented reality technology that the firm is offering free software to develop apps using it called  Vuforia.    Go to this link to see some incredible videos of what this software can do.  This, more than anything, has convinced me that AR is not a flash in the pan, but an alternate reality that will be here to stay. Retailers will use the AR apps and that will generate income and of course, apps will continue to be sold for $.99 in the millions.

Qualcomm sees AR in three distinct areas: 1. gaming and play (like WooWee), 2. Interactive media (like offering more information at point of sale, expanded advertising techniques and added value in use of products) and the last big area is 3. instructional (all those how to use, construct and repair manuals will be interactive). I loved the catsup bottle label that turns into a recipe book.

The goal is to treat your phone as much like your eye as possible. Not many of the applications that I have learned about have actually materialized yet, but they are really coming. They already have 26,000 software designers using the software which recognizes 400 phones and already 800 apps have been developed. There are challenges that the technology faces.  These programs are battery suckers and there is no unified viewer so you have to download each app. The idea of AR glasses or goggles is still in the future.  

We have no idea at this stage what aspects we will be incorporating into our upcoming smart phone application for SDVAN. Will we use it for promotion or will our resources be able to use it to add layers of information to their programs? We are only at the beginning of this research.  

Here are two more links that are already resident on the DNA of Creativity Blog. If you are not yet following this blog, it is great fun to see the variety of art and science collaboration that are out there.

Augmented Reality Pop Up Books - DNA Of Creativity

Mar 24, 2012

Augmented Reality Pop Up Books. Augmented Reality Pop Up... NokiaTattoo that vibrates

Augmented Reality Tshirts and business cards - DNA Of Creativity

Jan 08, 2012

In our sample DNA of Creativity application we give a link to Elipse augmented reality. You can use your phone to see added featured on images that are processed to be recognizable by the camera of your smart phone.

Big Art Big Bucks

Andy Warhol's "Double Elvis" sold for $37 million
Lichtenstein's "Sleeping Girl," depicting a woman with closed eyes and flowing blond hair, fetched $44,882,500;
Francis Bacon's "Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror" — sold for $44,882,500.
Edvard Munch's "The Scream" for $119.9 million

You add these and many many more similar auction sales and this explains how sales of art in auction in 2011 have come back to the $31 billion level that they attained in 2007 after the dip in 2008/9/10. To put that in context, in the early nineties, sales were only in the hundreds of millions. We owe this current upsurge to the China and Asian markets. These figures comes from the cultural economist Clare McAndrew in a report for the European Fine Art Foundation. Sotheby’s just announced that sale in the May 2012 evening sale were $266,591,000.

How do those sales further break down? Peter Schjeldahl explains it in his New York article, All is Fairs. Modern and Contemporary art now accounts for 70% of art sold world wide. China then the US followed by the UK and a far fourth France are the nationalities that are buying. Half the sales happen in the auction houses like Christies and Sothebys but another $30 billion takes place in about 380,000 galleries and private dealers. Those two big figures, if you have not already done the math total over $60 billion a year in 2011.

I like this quote from Sarah Nicole Prickett in her article The rise and rise of the art fair in the Globe and Mail, “To see how art reaches the museum, the canon, you have to go to the fairs. I do not know if you can understand art without understanding the price of it. I suppose you could stick to an old-fashioned snob's dislike of art fairs, but that would be like eating meat, you know, without ever going to the butcher's shop.”

Private dealers do 31% of their business now in art fairs. Another quick calculation and you find a bit under $20 billion is spent for art at art fairs. Figures are not in for this year’s Frieze Art Fair at its first time in New York, but I think we can expect it to be over the $200 million that was made at the 2007 Frieze London. Amanda Sharp with and Matthew Slotover are the producers of the Frieze Art Fair and she says that 80 percent of the 45,000 visitors don’t buy art, but the arrival of this fair in the US heralds a change for New York. Although they had 10 other art fairs in March, none were on the scale or with the quality of Frieze.

Ann Berchtold who produced Art San Diego Contemporary Fair has followed the model of Frieze with focus on individual artists and specially curated spaces. The SD Art Prize at the fair is one very good example of this showcase of excellence. Last year, we managed for the first time with the help of sales of work by Adam Belt and Jay Johnson, to almost finance the prize for 2012.

You can see emerging artists nominated for the SD Art Prize at New Contemporaries V at Susan Street Fine Art Gallery opening on Thursday June 7th, 2012 from 6pm-9pm showing from June 2 to July 3, 2012
Shawnee Barton, Lauren Carerra, Noah Doely, Rob Duarte, Alexander Jarman, Anna Lavatelli, Lee M. Lavy, Ingram Ober, Vincent Robles, Deanne Sabeck, David Leon Smith, Brian Zimmerman
200 North Cedros Avenue, Solana Beach, CA 92075 More info: Melissa Stager 858.793.4442

You can see the SD Art Prize 2012 show at Art San Diego Contemporary Art Fair Sept 6-9, 2012
Arline Fisch with emerging artist to be announced on June 7 and Jeffery Laudenslager with emerging artist to be announced on June 7, Balboa Park Activity Center, 2145 Park Boulevard, San Diego 92101

Three Things You Can Do to Help the Art World

I was recently asked to be on a panel in El Cajon at Studio C Contemporary where artists, journalists, writers,university professors, critics, and business people discussed the role the arts play in bettering East County and its diverse population. The panel was mediated by Justin Hudnall, creator and leading operative of The Far East Movement. One question he asked was, “Do you think East County can host and support an art community?” My answer, in looking at the healthy crowd in attendance, was that it was already supporting an art community. I would rather see a “fake it til you make it” can do stance than the inferiority complex driven attitude that is still all to prevalent in SD. But having said that, here are three suggestions to challenge every reader into action. (you can watch the video of the panel at this link https://vimeo.com/41384166)

1. More Curators: Commercial and University Galleries and Museums should hold, at least once a year, an open call for curators to propose exhibitions. I don’t mean artists submitting their work for showing or even grouping together with friends to show. I mean really interesting theme shows which showcase what happening here in the underground spaces and pop up galleries. Alexandra Moctezuma is open to these kinds of proposals at the Mesa Collage Art Gallery and the students from her Gallery case are often putting together exhibitions at other venues like Space4Art. She offers the only hands-on program in Museum Studies and Gallery Management. We need to encourage independent curators and I might as well put in a plug for more independent art critics as well.
   
2. Traveling Exhibitions: Collaborations should be made to put together exhibitions so that each has at least two venues for display – North, East, South or Central. Making the effort to organize a really wonderful exhibition is wasted if it is not seen by more people. It makes sense to travel shows around the community especially when it take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get from North to South in our county. I miss lots of local events, as I do try to cover the whole county, but with fuel cost so high and public transportation so difficult, why not bring the art to the people. These collaborations would also help unite our community and I believe that is a strength that can produce more funding, more energy and more audience. Maybe this is happening somewhere in SD, but I have not noticed it.
   
   
   
3. Artists Projects for Schools: Artists should be proactive in organizing art initiative for schools, especially those with under privileged students. We are excited that the Artist Teaching Institute is funded by the SD Foundation and should start in the fall. Bravo to Jennifer Oliver for working so diligently to enable more artists to be professionally trained to teach. But there are many spontaneous projects that could be happening as well. For example, take a look at Janet Cooling and her latest commission for the Harriet Tubman Charter School in the SDSU College Area. The glass mosaic painting will be 7’x19’ over the entrance of the school auditorium. She is paying for supplies herself plus fundraising by selling works from her own studio and SDSU students' art to fund this display which will add a level of creative energy to this school that almost looks like a prison.
   
   And speaking about funding, how about this new idea for SD called Pizza Parlay. Up until the Thursday before each Parlay, you can send proposals for creative projects that could use a bit of funding to raise them off the ground or to the next level. Pizza Parlay will take place one Sunday a month, usually the last. Parlay-goers will each receive a packet of proposals to review over pizza, and everyone will vote on site. Proceeds from the $12 per person cover donation will be granted to the winning proposal. The more people attend, the bigger the grant. Urbanistguide.com will announce the winner the Monday after the Parlay, and unlike most grants, winners will receive the award immediately. The locations vary each month but the next is Sunday April 29th, from 5-7pm at URBN Coal Fired Pizza & Bar 3085 University. At the last one $460 was awarded to Elias Sidney Blood won for a short film.
   

Artists every where should raise the bar and be challenged to make better art work…work that is challenging, exciting, emotionally saturated, honest, enlivening and reflective of our wishes and desires.

There are many who are taking the initiative and working on projects. Hats off to: Jolee Pink who started her own Encinitas Foodie Fest:to showcase artists and sustainability; Sandi Cottrell of Mission Federal Art Walk for giving student scholarships, this year to Stephanie Wang (SDVAN sponsorsthis with mentor training); toSherri Fox of Trios Gallery for transforming an Encinitas storefront into a mini Trios a Go Go; to SmartSpace Gallery a brand new ideato locate art in modern executive office suites; to Girl Fest San Diego at ArtLab Studios for providing a space for individuals to create avision of freedom; SixteenPlus One Art the first show ofa new space at the OnAssignment Studios and Gallery. These are just a few of the itemslisted in our RAW column for April.

United Councils of San Diego?

I was lucky to be invited to a web conference for the California Arts Council (CAC). This is an organization that I know of especially for its advocacy role for funding art for the state. It turns out that their state budget allocation was cut from $40 million to $1 million. The one million was a concession to a matching NEA federal grant of $1 million. In other words if the state had not funded the CAC for $1 million they would have lost the $1 million from the federal NEA grant. Surprisingly, a huge percentage of the money raised for the CAC comes from the ARTS license plates and the largest city to buy those plates is San Diego. They raise $3.5 million this way and most of that goes to fund the artist residency programs to get art back in the state schools. Programs have to be 13 weeks long and a whopping 75% actually go to the artists! Yes, I was not surprised to hear this is way above average as in many cases it seems to be the reverse with 75% going to admin. Average is about 50%

I further found out during this exchange, that most counties have a recognized art council that can apply for fund form the CAC. But in the case of SD, we only have a city council, the Commission for Arts and Culture, which can apply for funds. And the Commission for Arts and Culture only serves the City of San Diego. We also have an independent, unrecognized by the CAC, SD Regional Coalition for the Arts. Any city council can be a member (SD, Encinitas, Escondido and Carlsbad are members), but the Coalition is mainly an advocacy organization and does not have anything to do with funding.

We do not have any umbrella group to which all the cities councils in our county belong at this time that I have discovered. If we want to have a County Arts Council it would need to be recognized by 3 out of the 5 SD County Board of Supervisors i.e. Chairman Greg Cox , District 1 , Vice Chairman Dianne Jacob, District 2 Pam Slater-Price (soon to retire, I am told) District 3, Ron Roberts District 4 Chairman and Bill Horn District 5 . There is not much funding that can be applied for, as the CAC total budget is only about $5.5 million. Besides the residency programs, there is money for operating expenses, technical assistance for disabled, support for low income and rural programs, and funding for programs that are collaborative between at least 3 geographically unconnected counties.

We are being asked to check the box on our income tax returns to give $1 to the arts for the CAC. If we want that to come to SD outside of the city funds, then a council needs to be formed and approved. So we struggle here in San Diego with the idea of a County-wide Arts Council. What would be its role? What funds would actually come its way if it did organize? Would a new non-profit need to be formed or would an existing one take on this role? Until the role of a regional arts council is determined, these are hard questions to answer. That role would certainly have to be determined by its members.

Our local cities have different names for those making decisions about the arts. There are art councils, commissions, committees but most are volunteers who are exclusively concerned with their own agendas. There must certainly be crossover concerns and there might be some united goals as well. This is only a worthwhile project if coming together is a win-win for all concerned. The recent envision project Show Your Love for SD funded by the SD Foundation announced results that the general population is ready for change and does want those in leadership roles to all work together and not be silo-ed with little or no inter-communication. I found this quite heartening.

But the real challenge of creating a united SD arts council is to do it in such a way that it is an administratively minimal financial obligation. If not, it is just one more drain on resources. The moment you ask for a membership fee or listing fee, you are in danger of disenfranchising part of the community. So are we technologically advanced enough to have a virtual arts council? If we see San Diego as an innovation capital, a virtual arts council would be a good way to prove it.

Thank you, Dennis Paul Batt

Thanks to Dennis for being one of the first people we met when we arrived in SD. I hear this story from so many people. Dennis helped people feel comfortable when they didn’t know anyone. He would come over and talk to them and introduce them to others. He was a self appointed ambassador for the arts.

Thanks to Dennis for his dedicated volunteerism. He would help hang a show, help make a website, help serve at the bar, help install a sculpture. If you wanted something done you could count on Dennis. He was always a reliable part of a team, with no ego, no need to have his name in lights. It was never about Dennis and always about the art.

Thanks to Dennis for his advice and console. He delighted in calling up to tell you a bit of gossip and you would end up telling him something in return. And in the course of the conversation, you might discover a solution or a different way of thinking about something. He was genuinely a creative thinker.

Thank you Dennis for taking the piss out of overbearing egoist and there are plenty of those in the art world. He railed against them, battled to rid the art world of them and sometimes he even won.

Thanks to Dennis for being that little devil that tempted us to naughty things. Even if we did not rise to the bait, it felt good to imagine doing so.

Thank you to Dennis for reminding us we never know how long we have and that we have to say thanks and I love you to those who matter to us.

There are not enough thank you’s and many of us feel we did not say thank you enough to this man who made us laugh and pull out our hair, who got so thrilled when he saw a new creation, who was working on an exciting new project and who died far, far too soon.

Thanks to Dennis Paul Batt for so many good, good years and for leaving us with all the connections he made for us to continue his quest to have the value of art truly recognized in our community.

New Horizons in SD Art

I found myself making two speeches this month and in both the most important point was that old chestnut, why do we do this. Now I am no spring chicken and that means that I can cycle back to childhood and do things just for the fun of it. But I do have standards. My husband Darwin helped me to focus on the qualities that really attract us in any art work that we admire. We are looking for the excitement of break-though thinking and creation of the differences in perceived reality. We want a glimpse of new horizons, a view of what could be possible.

Many artworks will tell stories. Those stories will define in someway who we are, maybe in the past, maybe the present and hopefully in the future. I continue to be impressed with the quality of art we are now seeing in San Diego. The standard is getting higher and higher agrees Karen McGuire the curator of the William D. Cannon Art Gallery in Carlsbad. On view right now is the 2012 Invitational Exhibition, and McGuire admits it was hard to make a choice of just five from the juried show held last year.

Robert Ecker's paintinga were a favorite of Darwin especially the landscapes right at the entry. I also found these the best of his works as they seem to have focus and purpose which some of the other composition lacked. The technical ability of all the artists was very, very high but that is not the reason that we see such an improvement in the works in the last 15 years. SD artists were always capable of craftsmanship.

Becky Guttin (assemblage) created a field of strange and compelling shapes mainly on stems of metal and using gourds lined with metal filings. She is revisited these shapes that we first saw a while ago. The real revelation is when she groups them together and used her hand to vibrate the stems. All of a sudden we were transported from a desert landscape to an underwater bed of waving seaweed. I just wish that the works could move on their own so everyone could experience what we saw on the night of the opening.

Roy Jenuine (sculpture) Robert Nelson (drawing) both have stories to tell and allow our imaginations to fill in the blanks although we are directed by the visuals. Jenuine’s small figures holding on to picnic tables in gale force winds generated by drawn desk fans are charming. When grouped with figures in a variety of yoga-like positions all divided into display boxes, or a surfer and his surf board on a pulley with an elaborate water wheel, or a series of dogs of all sizes, we feel we are let into the world of an acute observer of life. Nelson continues his series of finely drawn characters seemingly from his dream world and we enjoyed another chance to see his work which is represented by Noel Baza. Nelson was one of our emerging artists from New Contemporaries III exhibition.

Sasha Koozel Reibstein (ceramics) has her own pharmacological lab in a kiln and has produced capsules for every possible malady. We see them not only suspended but embedded in what looks like body inners. For some reason these look rather pleasant and even humorous but there is a darker novel brewing here.

These artist are only just five of the wonderful talent that is developing in our community. Watch for the show in June of New Contemporaries now in its fifth year and all nominated by art professionals like Karen McGuire.

P.S. You still have time to see the wonderful overstuffed, radically shaped and exquisitely finished works of Lila Jang at Lux Art Institute. Ms. Jang’s misfortune of not being able to travel to SD from Korea is a benefit for us in that Kim MacConnel and Paul Henry have worked in the Lux studio during her show and their work is on display as well until March 3.

Is La Jolla coming back as a center for the visual arts in San Diego?

La Jolla is known as an upscale shopping community with lots of sales art galleries, but not that much art street cred. I had high hopes when I planned my recent trip there to see three new galleries. I was most impressed with the beautiful white Scott White space showing Ross Bleckner. On Jan 14^th there will be a community "art walk" in La Jolla and Scott White Contemporary Art will unveil the gallery's second show in this new location having moved from Little Italy. Stranger Than Paradise is a retrospective of photographs by Stefanie Schneider that have been hand-picked by White himself. Although her work has been showcased in collections and museums around the world, this is Schneider's 1st solo show in San Diego. You can also still see the William Glen Crooks exhibition

Thumbprint Gallery does not have street level windows and neither it nor Alexander Salazar Fine Art were open for business on the day I visited. Neither appeared to show work different from their other gallery spaces in North Park and downtown. But both will be open in the evening on Jan 14. ASFA (6-9 pm) will show paintings by Erik Skoldberg from San Diego and sculptures by Kevin Barrett from New York. Thumbprint (5-10 pm) invented Works of Wisdom, works by an eclectic mix of artists using famous quotes as their stimulus.

I used this opportunity to drop into Quint Contemporary to see the stunning minimal back painted glass works by Thór Vigfússon. These works do not read in photographs but have such a quiet power. Also close by is RB Stevenson and I discovered the work of John Rogers, which blew me away. This local professor at San Diego State is another hidden SD treasure. The show at the end of December was sparse because many of the works were sold, but that made the space ever more open and elegant.

The Kathleen Marshall: Still in Paris gouache paintings at the Athenaeum Art and Music Library were almost photographic the technique was so perfect but it was the way that they drew you into the scene and made you believe, for the moment at least, that you could be living in one of these rooms and about to step into the sun dappled garden that is their true charm..

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I visited The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego to see the Phenomenal: California Light Space and Surface. I knew the works of most of these artists and was surprised to be most taken with the completely black room by Eric Orr called Zero Mass. I entered the room with trepidation and left after a few minutes. But something prompted me to ask a guard if I had missed anything. He kindly took me back into the room and gave me the confidence to stay long enough for my eyes to become accustomed to the very low light. The room was not a deprivation experience but an experiment in light and space after all.

Do I think that La Jolla is coming back as a center for the visual arts in San Diego? No, three new gallery spaces will not make that much difference. What I do think we are seeing is the re-bounding of the international art market being reflected in these galleries’ quest for a bit of that succulent pie. I hope that Thumbprint and Salazar have not put more on their plates than they can digest as I sincerely wish that they will succeed.

Audience Engagement

I was glad to see the James Irvine Foundation publication Getting in on the Act as they made a very good case for the value of the policies at SDVAN. They reported that building support for the arts in the future depends on encouraging more participation from our audiences.

The study identifies three main types of involvement; curatorial where the public makes decision about the content or direction of the project; public co-producing with the collaboration of professional artists; and finally when the public is asked to create their own works of art.

We have found that SD audiences want to meet the artists and love to sit down for a meal with them and even share in the process of making the work. We know that art gives people a way to identify their community, take pride in it and thus protect and improve it.

SDVAN continues in its efforts to gain more and more participation from our community. During the Art Meets Fashion 2011 public launch in April of this year, we invited the public to strut their stuff on our catwalk with fashions made by them or their friends. This popular part of the program helped to build the number who attended this event to 1000 and it was one of the most well attended events of the NTC Liberty Station complex.

Hats Off to Life is a project where we will be going into retirement communities and basing hat constructions on the life of some of the residents. We hope to hold a hat making workshop for them as well. We will strive to introduce participatory components into the DNA of Creativity project in the next two years.

However, having spent 6 weeks looking at art in London with very little personal participation, I can testify that this was an immensely satisfying experience. Not all art needs to be displayed with a participation element although a little education is never amiss for those who might want it. The new show at the SDMA, Mexican Modern Painting from The Andrés Blaisten Collection (through Feb 19, 2012), is wonderful to see just for the varied styles and high quality of the work on display. There are two educational rooms within the show space. One has a time line with four ways to listen and interact with the information presented. The other has specially commissioned drawing benches with a chance to create right there.

For SDVAN, not having our own brick and mortar venue has become one of our strongest strategies. We do not consider this a disadvantage or even something to strive for in our future plans. As we work alternatively online, in loaned spaces and even work to get into people homes, we see this as a cost effective and innovative way to go forward.

Today’s artists are collaborating, remixing and repurposing not just with their materials but with their cultural views. At SDVAN we encourage that and try hard to do it internally within the organization. We are a 100% volunteer organization with no salaries or building cost to cover. All our donations go into the funding of projects for the community. This is an alternative way of running a non-profit and one which has grown out of the needs of those we serve.

I was astounded when I first came to SD to see the hundreds of art association that exist here. Although they have not perhaps been very proactive in creating an art market, they have certainly been responsible for supporting the many cultural resources of our neighborhoods. The SD region has this incredibly rich pool of amateur and part time artists and their impact is underestimated, I believe. It is heartening to learn that a total of 33% of all adults create and attend art events. Add to that 17% who attend and 12% who make art but don’t attend and you get a whooping 62% of American engaged in creative processes.

Here are a few examples of visual arts project mentioned in the study that I thought you might enjoy:

• The Art Gallery of Ontario’s In Your Face was an open-submission art exhibit featuring 17,000 portraits collected from the public
• The Davis Art Center’s Junk2Genius program celebrates the community’s commitment to reduce, reuse and recycle. This annual competition features 15 teams of community members competing in a timed sculpt-off using recycled materials
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LONDON 2011 - PART TWO

The link to this PDF includes news of

• Frieze Art Fair
  
• Exhibitions at Tate Modern (Gerhand Richter top)
  
• Degas at the Royal Academy
  
• Frank Stella at the Haunch of Venizen
• Raqib Shaw at White Cube (above bottom)
  
• Grayson Perry at the British Museum
  
• more news of the design shows at the Victoria and Albert Museum
  
• Pipilotti Rist at the Hayward Gallery (above middle)
  
• Turner Prize show at the Baltic in Gateshead
  
  
• and much more totaling 12 illustrated pages of coverage of October 2011 in London and Newcastle
  
  
  I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed attending these exhibitions.
  
  http://www.sdvisualarts.net/sdvan_new/pdf/A+ArtBlogLondon2011Part2.pdf